You Could Be Mine
by RedInClaw
Summary: Sam and Cas work a case in Montana with an old friend, but without Dean, they're a little out of their depth. Whilst Cas clings to the hope that Sam will come to his senses, Sam is moving on, but at a price. Contains: Cas/Dean, Sam/OC, and violence.
1. Chapter 1 - Sigh No More

**Note: Set in two weeks between Dean leaving Sam after Kevin's death and their frosty reunion, Sam and Cas decide to work a case in Helena, Montana. Castiel has his reservations, but it might just be the thing to make Sam take his foot from the car floor and let off some steam.**

**P.S. This is the first thing I've written in a while, so here goes! Next chapter to follow approximately two days from now...hopefully...**

**Chapter 1**

**Sigh No More**

'What exactly do you expect we'll find in Helena?' Cas asked, turning his head to watch the fields roll by and avoid the tentative subject that was Sam's brother. The green pastures were being crept up on by the first breath of daylight, but the night was still heavy in the sky. He felt the heaviness of the empty Heaven above on his head but he kept his eyes on the seemingly endless seas of green. Sam shifted uncomfortably in the driver's seat, trying to keep awake. Cas had offered to take over several times over the past five hours, but his offer was rejected for reasons known only to Sam.

'I'm not sure yet, Cas,' Sam mumbled. He raised his hand to wipe the sleep from his eyes, barely paying attention to the blurring road ahead.

To say Cas about him was worried was an understatement. The phone in his pocket - which, even after being human, he was still unsure of - burned him, the solitary number stored calling him like a beacon. Dean could have talked Sam out of this erratic behaviour before, but under the circumstances, it seemed…unfit to call the only person who might be able to help. This puzzle Castiel had to somehow solve on his own.

They rolled into Helena about seven in the morning, and once they'd checked into the motel, Castiel sent Sam to sleep - unwillingly on Sam's part, but it needed to be done. For one thing, Cas needed the head space, and with Sam asleep, he locked the door and stepped out into the open air, letting out a breath that had been building for the past two days. The great grey mountains stood with the same pride he once had, cracking the skyline with jagged nails and dragging the green forests trees like dull gemstone shards into the warm dawn light. Thin white mist was beginning to fumble its way through the mountains, feeling its way through the rocky crevasses down towards the sleeping town of Helena.

In his current condition, Sam would probably be asleep for the rest of the day, which left Castiel some time to think things over. Thinking back with a smile over the human days past, he remembered fondly a small coffee establishment that the locals used to frequent for social gatherings or simply to read. So, whilst gathering a small amount of money from the car - an old, blue SUV with a questionable history they had picked up -, he took one of the research manuals from the trunk and made towards the centre of town.

A warm seat in the Vanilla Bean Bakery and a coffee was enough to put his mind at rest. The book lay in front of him, spread on the table, promising all the answers to their case, but Castiel's mind kept drifting to Dean, to where he was, to what he could be doing, to his safety. Perhaps angels just weren't meant to concentrate for so long on books. Well, it would certainly explain why we needed prophets - Kevin. And from Kevin, his mind fast-tracked back to Dean. The guilt was crushing him, and the wedge it drove between him and Sam was so thick he could feel it.

If he didn't have to heal Sam, would he have tried to follow Dean?

But Dean made it perfectly clear that he didn't want anyone, and that included him. Not that he took any notice of Cas, or said goodbye, or even looked at him before he left for good. It didn't hurt him, not one bit - why should it? He was being pig-headed, as usual, and Cas just had to put that behind him. He had to focus on Sam.

He went back to Sam at midday, no longer having the motivation to even pretend to be working. He picked up a few of the local newspapers for potential leads - he had seen the piles and piles of these things on the Winchesters' tables for years, so he knew he was doing this bit right at least. Sam was already stirring when he returned to their room, so he left him alone and began bringing the familiar duffel bags of clothes and guns out of the SUV. By the time he had thrown them down on his bed, Sam's eyes were open.

'Before you say anything-' Cas started, but Sam waved his hand to shut him up.

'I don't care, Cas,' he spat, 'just don't comatose me again, ok?' In other words, thanks, I feel much better.

It was enough to put Cas at ease, so he showed Sam the papers. 'Do these help at all?' he asked. Sam began scanning them with weary eyes, but soon enough he began circling articles with a marker pen, and after a short wait, came the inevitable-

'So get this,' he said, evidently feeling more himself, 'three victims found dead in alleys in the past two weeks with puncture wounds on their necks, but also a camper apparently mauled by a wild animal, and seven unexplained disappearances. These can't all be connected, there's got to be some kind of triple infestation here.'

'Consisting of?' Cas asked. He was still new at this, but he was guessing at least one of them was a vampire.

'Most likely, werewolf, demon, and vampire,' Sam said, not seeing the tiny smile at the corners of Castiel's mouth. 'But I could be wrong. We're going to need to go to the police station - have you still got your badge with you?'

'Are you sure,' Cas said cautiously, all too aware of the answer, 'that we can handle a case this big on our own? If it is three different kinds of monster, shouldn't we maybe-'

'No, Cas. We'll take this one at a time, but we'll do it alone. The less people involved, the less chance someone else will get hurt.'

Sam stormed off into the bathroom, dragging his bag from the bed to get ready to go. Cas looked at his reflection in the mirror, knowing that more than his wings were missing from the picture. Going to the bed, he unzipped the bag and took one of Dean's old ties from the mountain of clothes.

It wasn't until he tried to slip it over his head - Dean never bothered to untie them anymore -it that he realised it was the dark red striped tie Dean had worn on their first case together. Shame, more than anything, caught his throat. He slipped the noose over his head and pulled it tight.


	2. Chapter 2 - Night Might

**Note: Sorry it's a little late, but here's chapter two ****J**** I should probably have noted in the beginning that this is intended to be a sort of backstory to a fic which is still in the works, hence the amount of flashbacks and groundwork, but I promise the action will be starting fully soon! Little bit of a taster here, but so much more to come 3 So sit back and meet Martha - spoiler alert, a telepath from Sam's college days, who is now a hunter (or is she?)**

**Chapter Two**

**Night Might**

Castiel was waiting in the motel room for Sam to give him directions to their next meeting point before the reconnaissance mission later, trying to wrap his head around what was actually going on in this town. One police report pointed unquestionably to a vampire nest, the next to demons - it just didn't quite piece together, not conclusively. _What would Dean make of it?_ he asked himself for the thousandth time. The answer was still the same - _Dean doesn't care, Castiel. And you can't change that._ Had he been human, he would have gone straight for the whiskey bottle at the bottom of Sam's bag, but it wouldn't have made any difference to him now. There was no relief, no let-up from the agony. Angels, even dying ones, just had to grit their teeth and bear it.

At the same time, three others in Helena were thinking of Dean Winchester.

One of them was Sam, who had just finished talking to a middle-aged drunkard who claimed to be a witness to one of the murders. It had been taxing - dear god, the guy had just gone on and on and on and on and on and on - but he had most definitely seen a vampire kill, not that anyone other than "Agent Wordsworth" would take him seriously. Dean probably wouldn't have either if he was there. Sam swallowed hard, thanked the man for his time, and left the police station at 3AM, walking back past the empty college buildings and the fit-to-bursting Rialto Bar, damning himself for having left the car with Cas. The wind was cold, and snow was forecast for the next day, even though the claws of winter were still to make their official annual visit to these parts. He walked as fast as he could without arousing suspicion, but no matter the speed or the freeze, he couldn't distract himself enough to stop thinking about his brother.

Inside Rialto, the second of those thinking of the oldest Winchester took a step outside and began following the footsteps of the younger, keeping a respectful distance those with only bad intentions would keep. And as they passed North Jackson Street together, the third joined them. Only one of them realized the presence of all three, and, unfortunately for his sake, it wasn't Sam. At Centennial Park, the second companion of this unwilling party took advantage of the empty space around them and went to grab Sam from behind. Of course, he forgot who he was up against - surprise didn't work against a Winchester, and now he had the blood pouring from his nose to prove it…but the botulinum toxin in his right hand definitely would. Taking a swing -

He didn't get a chance to plunge the concealed needle into Sam's arm as planned. The third companion saw to that. Firing a bullet into the assailant's hand and gliding an axe through his neck, she watched the pale head roll sleepily from the vampire's shoulders and his body sump gracelessly to the ground. Eyes of steel rose from the sight of the bloody mess to meet Sam's. Her hands relaxed on her weapons, ivory fingers dancing with the streetlight. Dark blonde hair, which left the nape of her neck bare to the cold night air, gave a metallic frame to the red flush of her scarred face. She was thinner than he remembered. Frighteningly thin, actually.

'Sam, what the hell are you doing out here by yourself?'

His breath was caught in his swollen chest - the only part of him that moved was his hair caught in that awful wind. Everything was still in his mind, everything dead, everything pieced together. 'I could ask you the same thing, Martha,' he said, not allowing himself the air to make anything louder than a whisper. Her own voice sounded rough, coarse, like she'd been downing three beers an hour for the past four years. 'I'm working,' she croaked. 'And saving your astonishingly unprepared backside, Winchester - how long was it before you realised you were being tailed? At least three minutes, during which time, old Julian here could have drained you dry.'

There was a small silence before they couldn't control themselves any longer. Laughter crept its way out of them, and they fell back into their old hugging habit. 'Jesus Christ, it is good to see you here, Sam,' Martha said.

'The whole town's gone to hell,' she told him, sat at the bar at Rialto, in the same seat that Julian had vacated for the last time just twenty minutes earlier. 'It started about three months after I got the job at the college - first, a couple of attacks here and there, run-of-the-mill vampire crap. Then there were these disappearances and murders, and then the so-called animal attacks. More than I could handle myself, anyway. I tried to call in help, but everyone's a little caught up with the whole angel business at the minute. So I just have to do what I can, here and there. Police department are suitably useless, but I've got a small team helping me out when I need them to.'

Sam drummed his fingers against his bottle, a thousand questions wandering in and out of his head. He would ask them, but there really wasn't much point. She knew every thought that went through his head, but she wasn't asking him about Dean, or Cas, or anything to do with anything but what was happening now.

'How come they're all working in the same area?' was all he could consider saying to her. 'That's just not normal monster, demon, whatever - behaviour at all as far as I know of.'

She finished off her drink with one long draught and returned to her narrative. 'That's what stumped me to start off with. I mean, a nest and a breeding ground in one place is nigh impossible, but throwing demons into the mix makes it almost impossible. But, then I started noticing patterns in feeding habits, and a little symbol on each of the victim's bodies.'

'What kind of symbol?'

Martha shook her head, running a finger around the rim of the glass. 'Dark magic,' she said. 'Pre-Enochian, but I was able to translate it. It's part of a mind-melding spell, except this is more complicated and a little more like swapping souls. I think that the demons are trying to figure out a way to possess monsters, and they're conspiring together - that's what I've been able to pick up on the old telepath network anyway.' She tapped the side of her head just an inch from the remnants of the old wound on her temple, raising one half of a smile. It was a difficult memory that surfaced from the dark recesses of his college years, and he saw that she heard it.

He pushed the door open without even thinking about it - Sam was more than a little intoxicated at the time, and Martha wouldn't mind. He couldn't go to see Jessica like this, not without one hell of an argument anyway, so he fell back on his old drinking buddy for a solid favour. She hadn't been out with them for a while, but it was getting to exam time, so no-one really thought much about it.

'Mmmmmmmmmmartha,' he sang, stumbling a little into her room with a grin and a hiccup. 'Martha, you here?'

He turned to the dressing table by the window where the only light in the room was coming from and saw her fixing her hair. Not usually a significant sight, but what Sam saw revealed everything to him, and whatever had made him feel giddy before seemed to evaporate in an instant.

A universally accepted fact about Martha was that she always wore a headband that covered the edge of her forehead. She had done since the first day, so everyone just kind of put it down to a fashion choice. But now, Martha was bare to him, and he saw there was a white, red, and black gash of sorts on her temple, a horrific wound. She threw her head over her shoulder and froze stiff, suddenly at the mercy of his next move.

'You'd better check in with Cas, he's getting worried about you.'

He jolted out of his reverie, quite literally, and looked up at her, noticing for the first time the dark red circles around her eyes. She was right - they hadn't spoken for about five hours, Cas-

'Can you hear him all the way over here?' he asked, realising how far away they were from the motel, and quite how much alcohol she had consumed ('How am I supposed to make sense of anyone else's thoughts when I can't even remember where I live?').

She grinned as wide as she dared, all too conscious of those observing them in the corner, so Sam just caught a glimpse of a smile. 'He's an angel, and he's worried - I could hear him before you even drove into town, dumbass. Although I didn't think it was you he was riding with.' To Sam's quizzical squint and tilt, she replied, 'He kept going on so much about your brother I thought he was with him.'


End file.
